Line thickness problem when printing to pdf

[konstobo]

Hello everyone.

As you may have already exprienced yourselfs, excel is not producing nicely looking pds when it comes to linetype and line thickness representation for the borders of the cells.

Usually the lines seem too thick, which I could tolerate to some extent, but if the lines are supposed to be dotted, the end result is awfull and looks very unproffessional.

Now before you suggest trying different methods, I have tried all possible ways of creating a pdf from the excel user interface:

1) Go to File -> Save As -> and select the .pdf format to save the file. The result is not good.

2) Go to File -> Save as Adobe PDF. Again, the result is not good.

3) Go to File -> Print -> Adobe PDF. Guess what? Result no good.

4) Go to File -> Print -> Microsoft Print to PDF. The result is not good either, BUT there is a very specific file, which is a spreadsheet I actually purchased online for issuing invoices, which will print pds files with almost perfectly looking cell borderlines, dotted, continuous, thick, or thin, you name it. However the pdfs that I produce from spreadsheet that I create myself, are terribly looking, although I use the exact same settings with the "good" spreafsheet I mentioned.

Could anyone help me out please? I am more than happy to compensate you for your time if you manage to find a solution to my problem, as long as this doesn't violate the forum rules.


Best regards,

Constantine

 

[eduzs]

Are you using any scaling option in print menu?

 

[konstobo]

Yes, I have it to fit in 1 page tall, and 1 page wide. I can see in the scale box (which is grayed out) that this is equivalent to 97% scaling.

 

[konstobo]

I think your question pointed me to the right direction. thanks a eduzs.
I now see that instead of having it to fit to a one by one page, if I use a scaling option to let's say 95% up to 99% the result is good. But if I set it to 100%, for some reason that remaining 1% messes everything up.

 

[eduzs]

An workaround maybe is to format worksheets so you don't need to use scale.

 

[konstobo]

I it's not a issue of the print area exceeding one page.
Even with only a few cells that can fit in a 1x1 page with plenty of space left, if I print to pdf with scaling at 100% (no change in size) the linework is bad.
The exact same print area, if printed at 99%, it works ok. It's probably a bug.

Could you please draw some borders using the second dotted line from top left in the excel dialogue box, and then print it to pdf with "Microsoft Print to PDF" to see if you are getting the same issue as I do?

 

[eduzs]

Without scales is how the borders actually are and should appear printed.
There's no options to personalize such details like thickness of dotted borders, you can just choose one of the options from the list.
It just seems like a matter of preference, you can only play with scales and borders to achieve what you think it's a good print.

 

[konstobo]

Well, surely I understand that there are no personalization options, but you will see that the print preview looks fine, and the the actual pdf is not. It's definately an issue and other people have reported it to microsoft.

 

[Bkwld]

Hello everyone.

As you may have already exprienced yourselfs, excel is not producing nicely looking pds when it comes to linetype and line thickness representation for the borders of the cells.

Usually the lines seem too thick, which I could tolerate to some extent, but if the lines are supposed to be dotted, the end result is awfull and looks very unproffessional.

Now before you suggest trying different methods, I have tried all possible ways of creating a pdf from the excel user interface:

1) Go to File -> Save As -> and select the .pdf format to save the file. The result is not good.

2) Go to File -> Save as Adobe PDF. Again, the result is not good.

3) Go to File -> Print -> Adobe PDF. Guess what? Result no good.

4) Go to File -> Print -> Microsoft Print to PDF. The result is not good either, BUT there is a very specific file, which is a spreadsheet I actually purchased online for issuing invoices, which will print pds files with almost perfectly looking cell borderlines, dotted, continuous, thick, or thin, you name it. However the pdfs that I produce from spreadsheet that I create myself, are terribly looking, although I use the exact same settings with the "good" spreafsheet I mentioned.

Could anyone help me out please? I am more than happy to compensate you for your time if you manage to find a solution to my problem, as long as this doesn't violate the forum rules.


Best regards,

Constantine

Ok so this has been bothering me for years. My thinnest Excel file borders shows up thick in PDF.

I believe it had to do with the printer setting.
Specifically Adobe PDF printer “print as PDF”

I use page scaling in my Excel files so it’s not the scaling that messes up the border. And scaling is needed to fit most excel sheet into a page.

I found the following solution which worked for me:

Print Excel page to PDF:
Print->Page Setup->Print_Quality. Set to 300dpi

Print PDF to PDF:
Print->Advanced->Color Management->Color Handling. Choose “Same As Source (No Color Management)”

Print Excel or PDF to a physical printer.
This setting vary depending on the printer. My laser HP 1102w didn’t have much setting or options for me to print correctly.